“Struggling against plunging prices and a shrinking audience, book publishers think they’ve found a compelling vision for the future: magazines. oday, the San Francisco-based literary startup Plympton launched an online fiction service called Rooster. It’s sold by subscription. It’s priced by the month. And it automatically delivers regular content to your iPhone or iPad. In other words, it’s a book service that’s packaged like a magazine service. And it’s just the latest example of how books are being packaged like magazines. With Rooster, readers pay $5 per month in exchange for a stream of bite-sized chunks of fiction. Each chunk takes just 15 minutes or so to read, and over the course of a month, they add up to two books. The service builds on the success of Plympton’s Daily Lit, which emails you classic literature in five-minute installments.” (via )

“Kady Morrison’s debut novel, Juniper Lane, won’t be on store shelves for months, but already her fans number in the six figures. They’re familiar with her work from Archive of Our Own, a fanwork site where Morrison writes fanfic under the handle gyzym. Her publisher, Big Bang Press, is well aware—in fact, it links to her Ao3 page directly from its website. For a conventional publisher to acknowledge, let alone link directly to, a writers’ fan fiction is unprecedented, but Big Bang specializes in original works by authors recruited from the fan-fiction community.” (via Wired.com)

“The American Booksellers Association (ABA) and NetGalley today announced the launch of the Digital White Box program, which will allow publishers to introduce new titles exclusively to ABA members via NetGalley. The program will help more individual booksellers read new titles earlier, from a diverse group of publishers and genres, and will be available for ABA members only, via a sign-up on the ABA site. There are over 10,000 bookseller members worldwide registered on NetGalley; the service is free for booksellers and other professional readers.” (via Digital Book World)

“Texas has seen the future of the public library, and it looks a lot like an Apple Store: Rows of glossy iMacs beckon. iPads mounted on a tangerine-colored bar invite readers. And hundreds of other tablets stand ready for checkout to anyone with a borrowing card. Even the librarians imitate Apple’s dress code, wearing matching shirts and that standard-bearer of geek-chic, the hoodie. But this $2.3 million library might be most notable for what it does not have – any actual books.” (via The Associated Press)

“D.C. Public Schools announced Thursday that it has purchased 85,000 new books for school libraries around the city, an investment that comes after years of pressure from parents and activists. Schools also have received 4,000 new musical instruments, 2,000 desktop computers and more than 1,300 laptops and tablets, as well as art supplies and science lab equipment.” (via The Washington Post)

“Public library books are sent to the dumpster when they violate what some Lafayette librarians jokingly call the “three booger rule.” The term refers to books too soiled, stinky or damaged to be saved. The Lafayette Public Library will need to junk 24,511 such books this year. Library administrator Teresa Elberson used a battered copy of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” to explain.” (via The Advertiser)

“The University Press of Kentucky is giving free e-books to readers who own hard copies of titles and engage with the publishing company via social media. Book owners can submit a photo of themselves holding a hard copy of a University Press of Kentucky book on Tumblr, and the company will send them the e-book version. The press decided to start the e-book loyalty program after recognizing that many readers who own hard copies of books might also like to own the electronic version, but don’t want to pay the additional cost for the e-book, said Mack McCormick, director of publicity.” (via Inside Higher Ed)

“Without direct state government funding, the Louisiana Book Festival relied on federal funds, private donors, some tourism marketing money and a lot of volunteer help. The downtown Baton Rouge event was canceled in 2010 as state funding dried up amid state budget woes. The popular festival resumed in 2011 with help from the Louisiana Library Foundation and Friends of the Library.” (via The New Orleans Advocate)

“The University of Iowa library contains more than 4,000 miniature books, all measuring fewer than three inches in either height, width, or both. Three inches is not a lot for a book, but three inches is outright capacious when compared with a little red bug of a book, one of the smallest objects in the entire collection, measuring 0.138 inches square and 0.04 inches thick.” (via The Atlantic)

“BookVibe is a three-year old Big Data venture that has developed a natural language search technology that allows users to search their tweets and extract the books that are being discussed by the people they follow on Twitter. The service is free to use for consumers and is looking to generate revenue by mining the data for book recommendations and book discovery and offering the relevant analytical information to marketers, publishers and authors.” (via Publishers Weekly)